Transcript
Introduction
Hi, everyone. Welcome back for another Matt Talks. And this week, I wanted to do something different. And I thought, who better to tell us about the history of news from literally inception to where we are today, but also hopefully to to give us a vision of his future.
And I said to Richard, why don't you join me and let's talk in twenty five minutes about the history of news.
That's why he doesn't invite me, by the way.
I was like, how can we get Richard to talk within twenty five minutes? But, like, I love a good challenge. And luckily with software like this, I can cut out bits and all the umms and ahs we can cut out so we can condense it in some way. But thank you for, for for joining today.
Thank you for the invitation.
Finally. You've been waiting.
Talk to me.
You've been waiting for this.
So, so after March twenty twelve, you, started the company and you decided to call it Your thirtieth birthday.
I know. That was my twenty ninth, I think.
Oh, yeah.
Because in a year later, I joined, only. So what were you thinking calling a company a word that no one had ever heard of?
So I, there wasn't really it was one of these things where I didn't want it to be, you know, hotel software next generation, you know, dot com.
I thought that it should be something evocative and something that that can mean something and yet means, like, you can project on it, basically, like, your own kind of meaning. And the first idea that I really had was, you know, it should be an operating system for hotels, that, you know, ultimately, what we're building towards. And at that time, it was still very much kind of a an app for for guests or basically a a way for guests to personalize their stay and for then the hotel staff to be able to take it on and and actually kind of, you know, fulfill all of those different wishes. But
but, ultimately, we were building towards a an operating system. And so the greatest operating system that has ever been built, is Windows. But, running a hotel is not just about a single window, a single kind of sheet of glass. It's about, you know, here is this department.
Here is this thing. Here is this thing. And so I thought, well, it's actually not about windows. It's about an entire house.
But it's a collection of these houses. There's a sales and marketing or sales house. There's a marketing house. There's a distribution house.
There's a housekeeping house. There's all of these different things. And, so I was like, okay. Well, maybe it's a series of these houses, together.
And then I just started playing with that imagery.
And, you know, having grown up half in, half in London, I started thinking about news houses. And I also like the idea that, you know, in Monopoly, you put a couple of these houses together, they become a, they become a hotel.
And that's where I thought, like, news. Like, it's it's a nice imagery of of a lot of these little houses together. You know, whoever's been to London will see a lot of these kind of mews rows, which are converted stables.
And I like the idea that they were always kind of behind great houses.
And so there's just a lot that started really, really working that, you know, behind every great business, there's a mews, and all of these different things. So that that's really where the where the name came from.
And it, yeah, and it was very difficult to get 黑料网 dot com, but, we managed to get There's a story there that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that I think the original vision is, you know, it was very much, you know, the operating system for hotels.
Chapter
Where it all began
There was always a fintech angle. Back then, it was much more of a crypto angle because I was really, really into Blockchain and and Bitcoin. And I remember actually one of the first meetings where I was, like, trying to get you into the idea of what it would be basically, like, you know, working at a start up.
I took took you to a Bitcoin meetup, I think, like, since, like, in twenty twenty.
You've gotten that. Yeah. True.
Yeah. And it was, like and I just did think that, like, we could we could think about how to, you know, how how to solve the problem of identity. Because the biggest problem with check ins is how do you know that the person who's checking in is that person. And so how do you trust that person straight away?
And that's where I thought actually, like, having some aspect of, financial technology actually be embedded as part of the solution was really there. I, for example, had I still have the document that I, that I kind of wrote, about all of these different things, but I thought that, you know, content would have to be a part of it or some sort of experience that that also every single person who'd come into a hotel needs to be uplifted by the experience.
So those are all different things that I thought we would somehow inject into it. It's become much more about the management of rooms and the management of, services and and spaces and things like that. But I do think that, you know, to to that point about is it different?
Like, it's still the same in terms of I I but I still feel like we're only basically.
Yeah. Like, we're only, like, forty percent through to that vision. Like, I think, like, when we when we first talked about, like, well, we've gotta do the PMS. We were like, yeah.
It's gonna take a year to build the PMS. And back then, we were like, oh my god. We're gonna have to, like, build a PMS for a year. You know?
Well, I don't know. My fear is like, what are we gonna do with all the developers in terms once we're done? And, like, now we have more than more developers than we ever thought we would employ.
Yeah. Like, it is, like, thirteen years in. We're still building the PMS.
But, yeah, like, I feel that the operating like, that's still that same notion of behind every single great business is a mews. You know? I think that that that that's still an image that I really, really like, and it's just hotels are so much more than just rooms. Hotels are so much more than just checking in and checking out.
Yeah. And I think it's about that. You know, how do you form that relationship? How do you form that, that idea that this is a place that I want to come back to?
This is a brand that I want to be associated with. And so I feel, you know, looking back and looking forward, that's still the journey that we're going to be on for a really, really long time. And I feel like we're not close to actually having solved it.
In that moment thirteen years ago when you thought, no. Like, there's nothing to buy. I need to build.
Like, what was the market looking like? The technology market in hotels at the time.
The truth is I didn't really know that well. Like, I feel like, you know, when when do you when you get people and they're like, oh, and then I spend six months doing market research and stuff like that. Like, I feel like I did a basic amount of market research. Like, we knew what was the name of that German, PMS that existed?
HETRAS. So I knew that there was something in the cloud, but it just there there were certain things, I think, back in twenty twelve, where you could see this is where the world was going. So, you know, anything that would have to be wired was out because it was going to all be you know, we'd had a couple of years with the iPhone. Like, everything was going to be mobile. Everything was going to be cloud. You have to think about smaller and smaller screens. You know, the idea of people doing things on a desktop, just felt, even then, very anachronous.
Because what was your vision for the hotel? Because I think that played a big part into how 黑料网 turned out. Right?
Yep.
Well, so the like, that was Maybe sorry.
And I just talk about the hotel, but, like, maybe introduce what the hotel is.
So so, it was, well, back then, it was a hotel that I was going to call the Maharaal.
But it's a hotel in Prague called The Emblem, which my sister is still the GM of.
And the way that I thought about designing it and putting it all together is that it was a sixty key hotel, but it was owned and operated by a family. And I wanted you to get that feeling of coming into somebody's house straight away. And I feel that that's that's ultimately what every single hotel is trying to do, even if you're running a small B and B or if you're running, you know, a thousand bed, you know, massive hotel or hostel or whatever it is, you're still trying to actually make sure that as soon as somebody comes in through the door, they feel that sense of this is my place. This is my home.
And that that's really what I wanted. As soon as somebody comes in, that they feel at home, and you don't feel at home by putting a barrier between you and that person who you've just welcomed into your home. You know, you you immediately become a shopkeeper in that scenario. So the idea of not having any barriers and making sure that that the the receptionist who we were going to call the host, or still do, you know, that they would be able to actually come meet you, greet you so that the whole experience is actually it's a welcome.
It's not a check-in. You know? What you're trying to do is there's a welcome and a goodbye. It's not a check-in and a check out.
And the more that you can actually use technology to to bring these things to life, the the the better the hospitality experience is. And and, again, most technology or most of the ways that we run our businesses should be driven by the fundamental things of what it is that we're trying to achieve with that process. It shouldn't be that we're building for the process itself.
Chapter
How hotel tech evolved over the years
And I remember because we met around the time that you set up the company, and then we became friends, and we were just having these beers. At some point, I came into your house, and you had this one wall where you had posters with this, like like, writings and things on it. Do you remember what was on your walls?
Yeah. So it was so that was all of the screens for, and, like, I was trying to what I the the way that I would like my design process, I guess, at the time was just to draw out, you know, what was every single screen. And so it's you know, it ended up becoming what the dashboard is today.
But what we were trying to kind of figure out, you know, back then was how do we make sure that somebody is able to be on as few screens as possible to be able to manage that entire business. So, you know, how do we condense the information as much as possible, and how do we make sure that even if you're navigating kind of two or three steps forward, you're never you're never getting lost, basically. It's really easy to kinda come back and there's that you can do the most amount of things on just one screen before you need to go to the next, before you need to go to the next.
And so it was like it was really just having I think it was nine or sixteen pieces of paper just on the wall, just, you know, this is And I have, like, nine or sixteen.
It can't be fifty. It's not wasn't forty No.
It's like something I I can't. Yeah. I can't. Because I'm like either it like, it was three by three or is it four by four, but I can't remember that. But it was, like, definitely a a block that I had. Yeah.
And and, you know, the first hotel went live, and we had built that solution. In a couple months, we had to build something to go live.
Because if you remember, like, when you started so when you started, I tried, I remember coming into this, like, triumphantly coming in.
And I think we you just said yes. Like, you just said that, like, okay. I will leave Hilton and come and join you. And I remember triumphantly coming back into the office and, like, there was, like, Hans the two Hondas and Ondra.
And I was like, we can finally build the Commander, which was, like, the the PMS because you were going to help us actually. Because back then, we had this, like, actually, like, beautiful app, that was for the guests to be able to and it was for the guests, but also for the for the hotel. So when you would come in, you would be be able to actually kind of check-in and do a co co check-in with the with the guests, but it was also a reflection of what was going on on the on the website. So you could kind of personalize your experience and then have somebody at the the hotel actually kind of check you in.
And I remember, like, I said, like, look. This is gonna be great. We're gonna stop working on this because this was too easy to build. We're now going to do the really, really hard work of actually doing the whole PMS.
And, and that's I remember when when you actually, like, that's good. And I I remember even before that when you came in, and I was like, oh my god. He's gonna realize that this is not a proper company. We don't really have funding.
But I did realize that at some point.
But, like, I'm done with it, luckily.
Like, the first app that you built was an iOS app. No. Was it iOS or Android?
It was iOS.
IOS. Did you ever think of writing to Apple? I know you did. Well, you don't. Sorry. I'm curious now.
Well, so the the like, this is but this was the thing about the fintech was that, we we thought, like, how do we get people to check-in as quickly as possible? And how do we make sure that it's, that, it's really easy to actually kind of sign in to the hotel? The same way that, like, on a website, it should be really, really easy to kind of sign in. So this didn't exist at the time, but Yeah. Essentially, I think what we came up with was basically sign in with Apple.
You know, and and we were trying to do this with Apple because we were like, you've got all of the information that you need for a check-in with Apple, you know, or with your iTunes account, because you have a credit card stored there. You have your name, your address, all of the different things that you need for most European countries to be able to actually, check-in.
And so I ended up, I think for you, hilariously, like, writing to, because I think Phil Shiller writes, you're right.
Phil Shiller. Yeah. Exactly. And I just, like I think you'd asked, like, well, how do you get his email?
And I was like, I don't know. Just guess it. Yeah. And so I just went online, figured out, like, basically how senior people sign themselves off at, at Apple.
And so then I wrote to Phil Shiller, and he just responded to me, basically, like, within three days and got me in touch with their product team.
And then we tried to actually to, like, figure out, like, how can we not only get Apple users to sign in on other devices and make sure that that's easy. So, for example, like, when they're coming in, you know, we were going to at at the time, we were going to give everyone a small tablet that they would actually kind of use and and carry around the city and and things like that would be kind of their their their guide, or they would be able to download their own app.
But the the thing that we ended up thinking about was, like, well, what about all of the users that were not Apple users? And that's where I think it like, we could even figure out with Apple ways that that we could make it easy. But what we couldn't figure out is how to make the sign up process for somebody who didn't have an Apple device easier and how to make it almost, like, temporary. Yeah.
And, it was Like, it almost underlined, how you were just shameless sometimes when you make some of these things.
But it's it's honestly, it's one of those skills that I think more founders should have.
And you push the boundaries of my comfort zone in those early days, but you just, like, you just did it. You just called a random person. You just walk up to anyone, and you still have this feel. You're walking to the room and you find the most impressive person, and you just run up to them and you start talking to them.
And If I but, like, life is too short.
Right? And I think, like, that like, I think that that's I think we're we're we're we're really good at that. Like, you have a structural approach to every single problem, and you're like, okay. Well, if we're going to do this, then we need to do this, then we need to do this, and we need to do that. Yeah. Whereas I kinda go like, oh, yeah. But, like, first principles thinking, how would this work if this wasn't if this didn't need to exist in the first place?
Okay.
That logical thing. Okay. Let's just go to that because that feels like the easiest. So, for example, like, in this, it was like, it's a boutique hotel in Central Prague. Like, most people are going to probably own iPhones. And if they don't today, they will in five years' time.
So why not just make the whole thing Few steps.
Yeah. Skip a few steps, basically. Like, you might have a bit of pain, like, in the in the first part, but let's just move towards that. And I think that that's that is the way that I usually think.
Like and it's terrible because sometimes I do live five years in front. I'm like, don't worry. This is where the world is going, and everyone's like, but it's not there yet. You know?
But I do think that it's, it's it's good to have both of these things.
Chapter
Early sales strategies
Yeah. Yesterday, I was in the Prague office, and I was hanging out with Jan, who is one of the developers that joined not one of the developers, but he he's leading our community efforts on the r and d side today. He's been since employee ten, I think, he he's been with us. And I said, what's the question you want me to ask Richard tomorrow? And he said, what was your sales pitch in twenty thirteen? Do you still remember it? That's the thing he he wanted you to to do.
Oh my god. The sales pitch in twenty thirteen?
I probably have a deck, like, on my computer, but I won't, get it up. But I think it's, like, actually quite similar because I think back then, I was selling the future, whereas now we've actually built most of it.
You're You're selling a new future, like A new future now.
Moving forward. Yeah.
Yeah. It's always like there's always a future.
But how can you tell because the first hotel well, the first two actually were your family hotels, but then we had to go find actual customers.
Was that an easy process?
No. That was incredible. Like, it was incredibly difficult because also, selling a PMS is really difficult because you're doing the hardest, most kind of intimate work that a hotelier has, which is basically, like, it's their financial information. It's, like, the business information.
So treating that lightly is just not you know? And we could say, look, we've we've done it for these hotels, but everyone in Prague is like, well, but, you know, that those are your family hotels. Like, you know, or, these are, you know, affiliated kind of things. It's like, you know, it's not the same for our business.
Chapter
Understanding guests
Like, we need to be able to actually kind of trust you. And I think that the the real pitch, I think, was and has kind of always been we'll make it really, really easy for your guests to feel at home. And we'll we'll make sure that like, we really, really led with the idea of automation, but it wasn't automation for its own sake. It was automation by hoteliers understanding that the guest welcoming process needs to be done easier, and we need to do that with technology.
And I think that Yeah. People always resonated to that idea that, you know, it's the check-in that needs to be sold. Like, no hotelier wants their guest to stand in the line. You know?
Like, it's not a thing that you enjoy as a hotelier. Like, you know, I always say that, like, nobody goes to hotel school. Nobody finds passion for hospitality because of the systems that they will use. You know?
Like, the thing that they love is serving of the people, is being able to have great conversations, meeting great people.
Yeah.
So if you can get the technology out of the way to just make sure that that passion stays alive for for as long as possible in, you know, in either very young people or people who just love to serve, who love to actually show real hospitality, I think people always resonated with that. So I think whatever the pitch was, whatever the screens were at that point, it's still the same thing that I think powers us today.
Because I remember, Honza, who who turned out to become our CTO later down the line, and for the emblem, he was like, do you want me to build this? Sure, I'll build it because this is my job and you're paying me to build this terrible system. But the the the his mind morphed once we signed Hotel Liberty, who had come with the industry leading solution, and they loved what we'd done. And for him to see it through the eyes of a hotelier that they were onboarding a system, and he's like, oh, oh, you're willing to pay for this thing that we built, and it's a real thing? And then that transformed how the developers looked at our bizarre kind of initial ideas of what we were doing.
I think that was the thing because I think that I think this is genuinely the problem for most software developers.
And I think it is a European problem more than, for example, an American one because, people think of software as, you know, here is here is a business need, basically. Like, let me let me try and translate that business need into code. Whereas I think what we were coming with was much more of a, dare I say, like Silicon Valley perspective of, like, this is what we want the world to look like with our technology.
We need to build for that world.
And I think that was that was not the way that they had been taught in school about the way that you should make technology and software.
Yeah.
So that first hotel, the first real hotel, that was a paying customer. Do you remember the implementation of that customer and how how we did?
I don't know what you did really badly. I remember sitting in that room with the GM, and with his director of revenue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that was really In that little backroom.
Yeah. You've been there in that little backroom. Yeah. We've been there many times, actually. Every time the printer broke, we would be back. Yeah.
Yeah. Because it was, like, a lot.
It was about the printer, basically, and, like, how do we connect a cloud system to A local device.
A local device and things like that.
And those were, like, some of the biggest, hardest challenges to have You once remember this conversation that Honza had with the building management system of the Emblem.
Yes.
Maybe tell that story.
Well, so, the like, the they didn't understand that we would not have the device there or, like, on-site.
Installed on the server.
On the server. And they they were like, but this is how hotels run. Like, why would you not have a reception desk? Why would you not have a local device that is a desktop? Like, even if you wanted to do a laptop, like, that makes sense because at least that can be, like, plugged in with a with a cable. And surely, everything should be plugged in with a cable. Yeah.
And even then, like on a physical meeting with our developer in a in an office where they could see him press buttons.
And I'm like, I I don't need to be there. I can just connect it from the cloud.
Yeah. And I think, like like, it's funny saying it now, but I think the amount of questions that we got from everyone about when is the desktop version going to come. And we were like, we hope never to have a desktop version. Like, it's funny.
Like, in twenty twenty five, it does feel like a faraway discussion. Like, we still get it from time to time about people who are saying, like, well, it needs to be like, I need to see my data. Yeah? And you're like, you don't.
Like, it's fine. It's it's in the cloud. Like, that's where the exponentiality of of all of that happens, and that's where you can get real time. That's where you can get, you know, now AI.
You know? But I think back then, this was, like, mind blowing for people that, like, you wouldn't have a desktop version. Like, what would happen if because back then, it was like the Internet speeds were not that high, you know, and you did have outages all the time. And we were like, well, but, like, you can now it's pretty crappy, but, like, you can download images, you know, on your phone.
You can do all of these different things. Like, the Internet speed is going to get higher and higher because the technology will just get better and better, and there'll be more failovers, basically. Like, if you can run your PMS from your phone, you know, like, why do you need any kind of, like, wire?
And I think, like, this was, like, mind blowing for every single person that we spoke to in the industry. And any any single like, the building management system or the card, companies, like, the key card companies. Yeah. Yeah. Like, anyone would just, like, laugh us out the room and go, like, you guys are idiots. Yeah.
Like, you'll find out in six months' time that Yeah.
You cannot build this company based on these, like, sci fi ideas.
And, and it was Still today, I think the majority of of 黑料网 Hotels still have a reception desk.
And it's not because our system doesn't run on a tablet. It's because the key card systems are so antiquated and they need to be plugged into a wall because they are still on prem. So if you think about a check-in, it's a credit card, it's a passport, it's key cards. And key cards is the last legacy. It's that that we can't fix the hardware of a hotel.
Chapter
The evolution of hotel reception
And luckily now, finally, Assa Abloy has a a really good cloud product, and we're starting to see hotels that don't need to be after reception. But it's we're it's so ingrained that we have a reception desk. But the only true reason for the desk was because things had to be plugged into the network walls, and you couldn't move things around.
Again, it goes back to that, again, that first idea. Like, you want the way to come into a hotel to be a handshake. You know? And, like and it's also a thing.
Like, you build a you build a reception, the receptionist will hide behind it. Yeah. Yeah. You build any kind of space where because people are awkward.
People don't want to welcome other people. You know? They kind of they they want it to be official. You know?
I feel like a lot of what we see is, like, these kind of what what people dress up as, you know, ways to be, you know, more formal or something like that. It's just that's just a way to, like, still essentially kind of diminish that trust. Like, the the the trust needs to come from a handshake, from a greeting, from a bow. You know, that's how humans greet each other.
It's not by handing over a passport. Yeah. And I think that the, you know, the technology the reason why mobile works and because it's just it's more in tune with how humans actually want to live. Like, they don't want if they want to kind of sit down and do work, they go to a place of work.
Yeah. But if they want to come to a place of welcome, they don't need a desk in between that.
Chapter
Cultural foundation of 黑料网
Yeah. So if you think about 黑料网 as a company, the early years were probably well, I know they weren't easy. What were some of the major moments that you remember that, you know, in that that early journey of survival to to growth journey? Like, what were some of the things that you have ingrained in your mind that I think important cultural moments that we we still tell to our teams today?
Like, I think that there's, a lot of the self sufficiency.
Like, for example, I remember the ritual that we would make every single developer, you know, put their own desk together. I I always like those kind of things were, like, always quite fun because we were like, you know, don't ask a question, Google it. You know? It was just, like, make sure that you're not creating, like, that you're your unknowing of something, like, that isn't creating more strained stress, basically, like, onto somebody. Like, somebody else doesn't have to think for you, basically. Like, think about how you can solve your own problems, basically, as much as possible.
I think that that's something that I think that we still have culturally in the company, and we still try and basically, like, make sure that it's there. The other thing that I think is really important is that we always try to treat everyone as a as an adult.
You know, I don't think that either of us were interested in building a company where we would have to baby everyone, and we would have to kind of write out very complicated rules, basically, for everything. We just you know, we told everyone, look, we're gonna treat you as adult. Yeah? And, like but if you break the trust that we give you, yeah, then that's gonna be crap, and we're gonna have conversations. But we're going to give you a lot of trust. We're going to give you a lot of rope.
And I think that that's those are things that we're we're trying to get to, you know, even though, like, you know, we're we're becoming more and more regulated. There's a lot of more kind of restrictions. We need to kind of authorize things and and things like that all the time. But, I think we we always wanted the idea that that most people are kind of self starters within 黑料网 and that they can get stuff done, as soon as they cut come through the door. And they they want to learn. They want to kind of understand what it is that we're doing. And I think that that's why, like, we've always had a really strong culture of documentation and stuff like that, but also Well of learning.
I remember when Ilsa joined us, and she was our first I don't even know what director of operation, I'm sure, was the title. And she said, oh, where's the procedure for this? And I said, like, honestly, if you haven't written it, it doesn't exist. And I kept saying that over and over. And she's like, right. There's no procedure for anything. So, like, the culture definitely came a little bit later.
Right.
But, like, at least the documentation for the code and things like that, that I think was always really, really strong.
Chapter
Lessons from loss and scarcity
I think also the irreverence, you know. Like, I think that we never we've never look. Like, this was always such a long shot from the start. Yeah. And I think, like, both of us are incredibly competitive people, and we really, really hate losing and really, really hate, like, any failures. Like, I, for example, like, remember this one deal that we lost to, a US competitor, and it was a deal up in Norway. And we just I remember, like yeah.
Yeah.
After all these years, they left After all these years.
For them. Yeah. But when they walked into the booth at ITB, the big trade show that we go to every year, And it was just so nice that they, after all these years, saw their mistake and now signed up. And that's, like, probably, like, eight, nine years ago.
Yeah.
But, like, I remember you lose is really painful.
That's the thing. Like, every single loss was crushing. Like, it still is, like, to this day. Like, I still hate losing.
Like, I hate us, especially when it makes sense. Like, especially when you felt, like, a connection that there's another hotelier that really cares. Yeah, that that wants to do the things that we built this company for. Yeah.
I feel like when those people are going, like, well, you know, like, just not sure, you know, like, the, you know, that, like, you haven't been around as long or, you know, like, it's all of the it's like, well, thirteen years is a long time now. But, like, it there were always these reasons why people would go, and it wasn't because of what it is that, like, we're doing or why we're doing it. I think that's when that's when it hurts the most when it's like, these are news people. Yeah.
These are, like they they've invested in the the mission that we're on and, like, what we're trying to do and, like, how much we care about this industry, how much we care about preserving that passion for hospitality.
When those people don't sign up with us, like, it hurts so much, and it's so crushing. And you kinda go like, oh my god. Like, will we find enough hoteliers that care about this? And then, like, the next day, you kind of open your inbox, and there's somebody who has signed up. And so, like, it it kind of gets, you know but I feel like those those crushing things are when we've screwed up. I remember I remember, for example, like, doing this implementation in London, with a hotel.
And it was, like, genuinely, probably for those people, it was, like, the worst implementation of any system that they've ever had in there. Like, they're still our customers.
They're still our customers.
But, like The thing is but as you start telling the story, like, oh, I know exactly which one.
And you're gonna you're gonna know which hotel because I know how bad you requested. Like yeah.
But this was the thing. Like, I remember them asking us about features and asking, like and it was like you know, they were saying, like, well, do you have this? Do you have that? And we're like, we didn't.
And it was, like, so sad to tell people that, like, the thing that they had relied on, in order to gain this functionality or this thing that we were doing that was really, really cool, they were losing this thing that, like, we hadn't got to Yeah. Or we didn't prioritize, basically. And I actually remember, like, being so sad about it that, like, you would speak to some of these people who were really relying on it and who were trying to actually, you know, be supportive, but they were really, really crushed at, like, now having to do more work to be able to to work with the system. And I,
like, I those are the types of things that I really, really remember. Like, it's like for example, I really remember like, when people go, like, oh, it must be so hard running this business and stuff like that. It's like I'm like, what was really hard is telling the developers that they're not getting paid for another two weeks.
Like, that is that is hard. Like, having to have that discussion with somebody when they're telling you about basically, like, they need to get medication for this person or, you know, that that that somebody else, like, relying on this Yeah. For this. That's really difficult.
Like, that's really first years, we didn't raise money, real money, after about three years in, and we survived over, like, two hundred k or something.
Yep. That Ori shout out to Ori gave us.
Yeah.
Like, even my parents basically like, my parents didn't put any money basically to get into the whole thing.
Like, they they were like, yeah. You gotta do it yourself.
Yeah. But if you think that time of scarcity of money was actually, leading to a better product today?
No. No.
I think yes. Like, I think the scarcity is the mother of all invention, and there's so many different things. But I do always think about, like, oh god.
Like, I like We would have built some really dumb shit if we had money, I think, in That's true.
That's true. But, like, but I think, like, it's just I always think, like, oh, there's so many interesting things that we can and that we should still build. And so, like, I I do think that it was a really, really important thing for us to always work from scarcity, and the best ideas that we've ever had have come from scarcity.
But at the same time, it just still feels you know, I think that this is why we believe that we have to be bigger because there's just so many things that we haven't built, so many problems that we haven't solved.
And it's just and it is so, so nice to be able to solve them. It is so nice to be able to actually do them in the way that we think that they should be done Yeah. That we think leads to better hospitality.
And I think that that's that's what's really, really nice. So I, like, I always feel like there's there's more that we can do and there's and if we have more resources to be able to do more that that makes all of this better Yeah. It's it's great. So, like, it's, like, a weird thing. Like, I'm really happy for those early years, but I also wish that we would have been able to build faster.
Yeah. The other day, we moved from our Amsterdam office and we move offices a lot because we're never happy anywhere.
But somehow this photo got to my house.
And I printed I asked Barry to print it, because I was like, oh, this is a good reminder of the tough times.
It's you holding a television at a trade show. What's the story?
I'm not sure. Am I gonna get arrested for it? No. I think you probably are. But like You'll probably be back.
Yeah. That's true. So we, like well, I think, like, back then, we didn't really have much money to, like, travel and do anything, and we would go to trade shows.
I think, like, I think That was my I'd get this that we went to.
Probably. Yeah.
So we had a booth.
We printed all of the, of the, the the the booth materials, basically, like, I guess, the poster.
Normally what you do, you buy the the the land and then you have someone build the booth for you. But once you saw the prices of that, you're like, I'm not paying that. I'll buy the land because I need the physical land and everything else we'll figure out when we get there.
Exactly. So we were like, well, we'll go to, like, Walmart or wherever it was. Like, what was it?
I think, like, Bellmark, whatever. Yeah.
I don't know how much And, like, we'll just buy, like, a plank of wood Home Depot.
Plywood.
Home Depot. We'll go to Home Depot, buy a plank of wood, you know, get a, you know, get some nails, you know, and then get this poster, stick the poster on, you know, we'll watch a YouTube clip on, like, how how it is that they put posters on, and, the furniture, the way that we you know, so the ones that we we would be entertaining, the, the the hoteliers on on the people that were coming to our stand, That we would get from, a secondhand store. And I ended up making a deal, if you remember, with the woman that that drove me as a basically an Uber driver. I got a free trip to the airport in exchange for that furniture at the end of the show. So we we swapped, like, two chairs and a table, for a drive to the airport. And, the TV, which is where all of the, the things were were I would like our product demo was was essentially kind of on. That was from the Airbnb, that I because we had this, like, tiny screen.
But the booth in the end, if you can see this, some of you might be listening to this only, but, like, the booth turned out from very far Really good.
Printed. It looked fine. But when you opened your eyes, like, the holes of the print and stuff.
Shout out to Craig, who was second week of his thing. Like, the we really put him to work. We were like, here's a hammer. Yeah. Like, put up this wall.
But it's like it it I think it's a really important cultural moment for us where we're like, you can actually do a lot. You can be everywhere even if you don't have money.
And, you know, there was and that trip, actually, there was a few moments in that trip. I can show you another photo.
Do you remember this? We were so close to also Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'll get to that. So there was another thing that was really amazing about that because we were this close to buying a diesel generator that we would use at the show because we were we didn't want to pay for the electricity.
And the the electric connections.
And the Internet well, the Internet connection, we didn't pay for because we we'd literally just had our phones and we tethered the whole thing. Yeah.
And so As we're demoing our system. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. Which, like, worked out well. Like, nobody noticed. Yeah. Yeah.
But, I'm not sure if we got any business out of that show, but, like, I think the the story is great. And that photo there was, so every single morning.
Okay.
I You need to start earlier.
So you had promised to a hotel, an automatic workflow where every morning at nine AM, I think, the daily reports would be dropped to the hotel because they had an integration pick up that report from an FTP folder somewhere. And you had said, sure. We'll we'll do that.
Not thinking that we actually didn't have development power to physically build that. So what happens?
So I figured out a, it's like if people knows Appiah, there's another service called If This Then That. And I figured out that there could there's something that could basically replicate it. So I could take the download of the, I could go into that hotel, download the file, drop it into this, into this, service. Actually, kind of transform the data into the way that the the, hotelier, in this case, wanted to actually kind of see it and then deliver that data.
But I had to do it manually because there was no development power single day. Every single day. And my my my favorite thing was that if I missed by a couple of minutes or something like that, I'd always be like, I'm so sorry the automation broke. But it was like it was just like me sleeping in or doing something.
Basically, that was And this photo was us in the US, so it had to be delivered at nine AM European time in in US.
But I had to wait so I think it was, like, I think it was central time. Anyway, but I had to wait till three AM or four AM to actually run that report.
To pretend that the automation was working.
A hundred percent.
And I don't even know if this hotel found out that this is what we did in the end.
No. No. No. No. I genuinely, like, then still spoke to them. And they were, like, we really I think because then we did build the automation, and it did used to break.
And they were, like, this automation's breaking a lot more than it ever did before. I was like, see? See?
Better than the code.
We have gone way over our twenty five minutes, but I actually really enjoyed it. We have to sign like, if you don't wanna listen, you can drop off.
If you think It's nice.
Like, you're the one, like, asking me all the questions. I know. Sorry. Do another one, which is like a Richard asks where I actually kind of, like, get your view on all of these things.
If you think back to the last thirteen years, what's the moment or moments that you're most proud of?
It's weird. Like, I get really I get really proud of, like, little stupid things.
Like, I get I get really proud of, for example, that moment when the customer that said no eight years ago is now saying yes because they're seeing that, actually, we did all the things that we said we were going to do. Yeah. I think those things make me really, really proud when people say, I didn't believe it or I didn't see it, and I can now see that you guys are for real. Yeah. That that you that you are building faster than anyone else, that you are trying to solve these things. And I think when when others see it, like, that's that's why I think we care about, you know, the hotel tech reports and, like, awards and things like that because it's like real hoteliers saying how they feel about the system.
That really makes me proud. Like, when it's like when we're actually living up to the thing that drives us every single day, and it's recognized by other people, and they see that it's real, and they see that it's not just us doing it because we wanna build a tech company or something like that or because we're kind of you know, we saw that there was a gap in the market for this. Like, I don't think we ever did it because there was a gap in the market that there was anything, but I think we just cared about the problem. And I think we can I think the the fact that we're so successful is because I think we just care more than anyone else in this industry?
You know? And I truly believe that. And I I think that that is the thing that makes me really, really proud. I I also feel proud when I see the caliber of talent that applies for a job at 黑料网 and when I see those people actually joining us.
It's a it's a huge privilege to work with very talented people, and that is the thing that makes me proud is that, like, we're able to attract them, that this is something that they would like to spend the next two, three years of their life on. Like, I think that is that is huge privilege that we're gaining every single month.
And, you know, just the caliber of people, the caliber of the the intellect that you can get into the into the company, the quality of investors.
You know, it's like I think from from one thing, it's like, you know, yes, you you take an obligation. But the fact that some of the smartest people in the room are in our room, you know, just feels like a great, great validation because this is a passion project for us. You know, this is something that we're we're deeply you know, like, we we really truly believe that this will make the world a better place, that if we can make the world more hospitable, it is a better world. You know, we do think that hospitality is a net good for the world. You know? Like, all of these things, and I think that seeing that reflected in the way that people, the way that people think about us, I think, is just hugely like, it fills me with immense pride that this is something that we've been able to do.
Nice.
So, yeah, so I'd Nice. You know, there's other there's other things, but, like, that But that's just thirteen years.
Chapter
黑料网 future vision
So if you look forward thirteen years into the future, what do you hope we will still do in those thirteen years?
I think I think, like, the main thing that I would love for us to be known for is for people to be able to say and I think, like, you know, I think this was when I think we first this was, like, one thing that I that clicked in my mind, when I was like, okay. We're really, really doing something good. It was when we came, I think it was to England, and there was, like, one specific town. We were talking to a hotelier there.
It was either in England or in, in the Netherlands. And they said, you know what? Can I have exclusivity for this product for a year so none of my competitors can get this? And I was like, that is amazing.
Like, if if it's that good what we're doing that somebody, you know, wants to include exclude their competition because they see it as a competitive advantage to to have this technology.
I thought, like, that is great. And so for me, it's, like, if we can do that, but on a grand scale. So we can verifiably say that if you're on 黑料网 you are twenty percent better than anyone who's on any competitive system. And we know that that's true, and it's not a marketing spiel, but it's real cold, hard data that our hoteliers can see.
That is the thing that I would like us to be known for. That is the thing that I want us to be famous for.
I think that's going to be amazing if we can prove that out in the next couple of years. And then, you know, I I think we both believe that hospitality is a growth industry. We believe that the lessons of hospitality are being taken on by the real estate world, by, you know, other people, basically, who want to build more hospitable places to live. You know? And I think that it's the same thing with some of the brands and chains. They they don't just want to be, just, you know, places that you check into for, you know, your twenty days of travel or twenty days of business travel and then maybe your kind of six days of vacation or, you know, fourteen days of vacation.
They want to be three hundred and sixty five day, kind of experience coordinators.
You know, they they want to be a part of people's lives in a much more, you know, much more symbiotic way, to really bring that hospitality. And I I think that that's that's where I get really, really excited about where the future of news basically kind of takes us because it's also where I think the future of this this industry is going to, which is that it should grow. It should grow into different categories. It should not just span just hotels, hostels, and maybe alternative lodgings, but it should basically kind of follow a person's, you know, steps through their life, basically.
So it's you know, they might start out in student housing, basically, that's powered by 黑料网 that then links their profile, basically, to the to the next stage of their life, to the next stage of their life, to those business trips and to, those places where they actually kind of live, but that that operated as, you know, whether they're kind of branded residences or whatever they are. But all the way through to, you know, being able to to to to be welcomed in a place where it might be a, you know, it might be a a a a a place for your for your parents, basically, or or something like that when you're when you're very, very old, you know, to be taken care of.
You know? Because, again, that is at the heart of hospitality. And I think that that's that that's at the heart of what this industry should be. It's a it's an industry that, you know, is about people taking care of each other.
And that feels like that's the growth vertical that this industry has to be on.
And I think that that's that's where we get passionate about being able to help more and more, you know, owners, more and more operators, and more and more managers basically be able to to deliver that kind of feeling of hospitality, that that central thing that we started it, the company with.
I think that's where we get really, really excited about being able to grow the company to to be that mesh that brings us all together.
Nice. I think that's actually a really good point to finish this conversation. I did have many more examples. I feel like if people actually enjoyed it and made it to the end of the fifty minutes of this conversation and they wanna hear more, there were so many because it's been such a vividly lived kind of thirteen years. And we remember these really key moments that transformed, the company to what we are today.
I need to ask you about yours.
Well, we can flip it. We can flip it if people actually we'll see if anyone actually makes it all the way to the end, ask for this.
The thing I appreciate about working with you specifically is, one, you always challenge people around you out of their comfort zone through your thinking and you're always five steps ahead.
Whilst at the same time, and all the shit we have to go through, we can laugh it off in the next meeting. And it's that balance of working really hard to doing really inspirational, really great things. And we've just come out of News Unfold, which was incredible just to see how the whole industry is rallying for us to succeed to us just having a good laugh on on the MadTalks. And and I think that's what keeps me engaged, and I just love your energy. So thank you for, for doing that.
Thank you. We should flip this so I get to, like, give you your compliments in the next one. Up next. Alright.
